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Public relations theory December 13th 12:00 exam Natalia Rodríguez Salcedo Office hours:  Thursdays, 10:00-12:00  Fridays, 10:00-11:00 Introduction What is PR? Exploration in Public Relations. 1. Theoretical context for the practice of public relations. 2. A snapshot/ an x-ray of PR industry What makes/is a good communicator? “Public servants that put all their abilities, virtues and opportunities as intelligent and honest experts at the service of others”. (D. Luka Brajnovic) Think Respect Analyze Discuss Education What is public relations? An organizations story and how you tell it, and also the chances you have to tell such story. Also the relationships with real people, we are dealing with them. Usually these real people are customers and those are the ones that will share your story, but only if you make that contact with them. We are dealing with social media too. It gives you the opportunity to affect attitude, it is about making news and sometimes it is about being news, it is really important t know the difference. Video: expectations in PR 1. What is PR? PR helps build, develop, identify and the maintain relationships between organizations and the publics that are very important to them. 2. Differences between advertising, PR and marketing. Advertising sustains a brand PR builds a brand and builds goodwill between Marketing is about products and services (buying and selling) 3. What PR professionals do? A little bit of everything: understanding in need, researching that need, developing: goals, objectives, key audiences and messages, implementing goals and objectives and evaluating them. 4. Jobs in PR Internal communications, media relations, social media… 5. There is a negative perception of PR… …but only when it offers a heavily biased portrayal of an event or situation. SPIN=LIE. 6. future of PR -Good. PR can provide things at a lesser spend that advertising.

-Social media. -Selling reputation: building relationships, engagements, understanding what audiences need to hear. Legitimacy gap: perceived difference between an institution´s performance and society expectations for right performance. This is also considered a motivation for activism. (Foot long crisis, subway) Public information campaigns Purposive attempts to inform or influence behaviours in large audiences within a specified time period using an organized set of communication activities and featuring an array of mediated messages in multiple channels generally to produce noncommercial benefits to individuals and society. Activism: Effort to promote or impede social, economic and environmental change. Employee communication: What is a spin doctor? A person responsible for ensuring other interpret an even from a particular point of view.  That person tries to forestall negative publicity by publicizing a favorable interpretation of the words or actions of a company, political party or famous person.  He provides a favorable slant to an item of news on behalf of a political personality or party. What does a spin doctor do? Techniques: 1. Selective presentation of facts and quotes. 2. Non-denial denial: evasive statements and equivocal denials. 3. Non apology apology 4. “Mistakes were made” 5. Avoiding questions 6. Burying bad news by delaying or simply not explaining 7. Assumption of unproven truths

Documentary: To sell a war (The Fifth Estate, by CBC. December 1992) The 20th century was the century of propaganda. -Jürgen WilkeThe Persian Gulf War (1991-1992) was unique in American history. Why? 1. First “real-time” war 2. Not an American war 3. Motivated by economic and political interests, but not by military threat against the US 4. Unevenly matched contenders

5. A unique rhetorical challenge to bush and his Administration, American politicians and the military In-class written assignment Provide critical analysis try to answer the following questions: 1. Do you think this was in fact a communication plan? 2. What were the main goals of the plan deployed by Hill & Knowlton? 3. What were the messages, key publics and tactics? 4. Do you think this was an effective communication plan? What is a communication plan? The formulation and implementation of an organization’s communication strategy in several steps; it is important for an association because this formulation involves thinking about what is your desired position in terms of how you want to be perceived by our different audiences. Steps in a communication plan: 1. Research and problem statement What´s happening? Provides information that you might be required for two things: to understand the needs of your public and to be able to develop powerful messages. That is to say the problem statement is exactly to determine the problem you need to solve for your organization. Involves that you monitor, not only knowledge but also opinions, attitudes and behaviours of your external public. This can be known as an intelligence function for your company. Situation analysis: collection of all that is known about the situation. It contains all the background information needed to illustrate in detail the meaning of a problem statement. Problem statement: concise description of the situation, often written in a sentence. A proper problem statement comes from a good analysis research. Elephant and blind man fable: Without researching a problem situation, practitioners run the risk of acting like the ix blind men from Indostan. What is research? The systematic gathering of information to describe and understand situations and to check out assumptions about publics and PR consequences. When do professionals carry out research? Depends of two purposes: 1. Formative: to lay a foundation or to inform a plan (prior to the plan) 2. Evaluative: to determine/evaluate whether tactics meet objectives (during or/and the plan) *if we had to choose between one or the other is better to sacrifice evaluative research because the lack of foundation you cannot get results.

2. Planning and programming What should we change? You need to think here about goals and objectives and messages. Practitioners must determine what goal is desired, either to mitigate the problem or to capitalize on the opportunity, and then devise a strategy for achieving that goal. Elements: 1. Goal setting: your goal should be specific so it has to specify what you want to achieve. They must be measurable. Realistic in the light of the budget and resources you have. Timely smart, they should specify a time frame. 2. Strategy planning: you have to think about three things; key publics, strategies and tactics. Your approach to the plan and the tactics are the action you are going to use to 3. Implementation or communication Tells us what should we do and say to our audiences, who is going to say it, when, where and how. The actions we are going to take. Everything that implies the first two steps we use it in this one. Implementation is the coordinated execution of both strategies and their tactics. This includes message content (slogan), selection of delivery channels and dissemination. The venerable 7 “C”s: 1. Credibility 2. Context 3. Content *not for the exam 4. Clarity 5. Continuity and consistency 6. Channels 7. Capability of the publics Communication and actions are not the ends, but only the means to ends. 4. Evaluation How are we doing or how did we do? Evaluations is not simply a postmortem exercise BUT an ongoing process and a means for managing continual improvement in PR.

To sell a war The fifth estate, by CBC (December 1992) Critical analysis. Following communication plan: 1. Research and problem statement Type or research - Formative (prior to the plan to lay a foundation): focus groups (conducted by the Wirthling group)… Findings - Vietnam precedent - Public ignorance about Kuwait Problem statement *negative public opinion of the prospect of a war* 2. Planning Goal - Altering public opinion reception of a military invasion, raising awareness and popular support for hypothetical American military intervention Publics - Media, politicians and citizens Strategies - Information about Kuwait - Emotions: patriotism, Saddam as an unscrupulous dictator Tactics Third party endorsement (citizens for a Free Kuwait) Definition The creation of an association that apparently has nothing to do with the parties involved in a conflict. It is this third party who asks for involvement or else defends a position without apparently not being involved. Astroturfing: a type of initiative that seeks to gain entry into popular culture under the guise of appearing to be a spontaneous movement. Result: in the absence of widespread support for a position, some unseen entity manufactures the appearance of it. Grassroots: a grassroots movement is one driven by the politics of a community (operating at the grass roots). It involves recruiting, training and mobilizing people to raise awareness and advocate for positive change. Result: the term implies that the creation of the movement and the group supporting it are natural and spontaneous. Scarce resources.

3. Implementation 1st stage: information campaign - For citizens: socio- cultural message (conference, events, fundraising stands…) - For the media: PR background information (daily newscasts, tempting sound bites…) - For politicians (PUBLIC AFFAIRS): media training and improvement for Kuwait´s ambassador image, speech writing, lobbying, institutional contacts… 2nd stage: information campaign - Hill and Knowlton makes up and emotional newsworthy event that builds political and social consensus: Nayirah´s testimony Result: massive media coverage 4. Evaluation - successful strategy and tactics: Americans in favour of American military intervention in the Persian Gulf: from 37% (November) to staggering 84% (January) Type or research - Evaluative (during and after the plan): daily tracking surveys (October/November) and biweekly surveys (until mid-December) to check the objective of the overall campaign was achieved (conducted by the Wirthling group). Theoretical context for the practice of PR Classical assumption of mass media theory: Mass media shape public opinion In some extent it was taken for granted that they were the only ones in power to do that. Also at the same time it was assumed that when an organization communicated with people they did it only for commercial reasons (to promote a service or sell a product) However, the right to freedom of speech and expression and along with the right to be informed (to access information) Information should not be the exclusive domain of the media Institutions are entitled to send out information “Error of opinion may be tolerated when reason I left free to combat it” – Thomas Jefferson

Theoretical context for the practice of PR Communication is a strategy for: 1. Survival… BUT must remember its social role 2. Differentiation/competitiveness In house departements: Democracy has helped communication The political contexts and also the information markets, nowadays there ir an omnipresence of speech as a tool to legitimate institutions. That means that communication is very professional now. Why should institutions communicate on a regular basis? Because they have to show their true identity and prove their social role. You have an identity you know who you are but the others may have a different image of who you are. So the objective of ( ) is that both images have to be as similar as possible. Good-bye to the Low Profile (Herb Schmartz) Legitimacy gap: difference between an institution´s performance and society´s expectations for the right and proper performance” Purpose: People: Process: Principles: is like saying why are we doing things, what rules driving our behaviour. It´s the distance between the values you declare and the values you leave. Relations, with people, are crucial for organizations. Global PR market 5 reasons why PR market is growing 1. Digital Increased investment in digital 2.

The global 250 agency ranking 2014

Agency name Edelman

Holding group

HQ USA

Weber shandwick

INTERPUBLIC

USA

Fleishman-Hillard

OMNICOM

USA

MSL Group

PUBLICIS

FRANCE

Ketchum BUrson Marsteller

OMNICOM WPP

USA USA

Hill & Knowlton

WPP

USA

Ogilvy PR Brunswick

WPP

USA UK

Havas PR

HAVAS worldwide

FRANCE

Difference between propaganda and public relations How does kony 2012 makes me feel? Who is the real protagonist? Kony 2012 Analysis  

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Sender(official): non-profit us charity invisible children (released on march 5th, 2012) Goals: the want Ugandan lord’s resistance army leads, joseph Kony, responsible for forced recruitment of thousands of child soldiers and sex slaves, brought to justice are the international criminal court.  Make Kony famous to create global awareness of LRA atrocities.  Pressure international governments to support the regional efforts to stop the RA.  Increase protection of civilians from LRA attacks. o See joseph Kony and his top commanders by regional forces and tried by the international Criminal Court (ICC) Protagonist: Ugandan warlord joseph Kony? Or Jacob= or Jason Russell?

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*One organization (invisible children) sets the goals and puts a huge effort behind simplifying the message for mass adoption. Contents: - Compelling narrative: the video tells a good story. Bad guys are Kony and the ones that choose to do nothing about it - The movie takes you on an emotional roller-coaster - Mobilization (to put in a state of readiness for active service, to motivate people to do something about something) Publics: opinion leader (culture, politics… US Federal Government) and public opinion ( mainly young people, willing to donate bracelet, slap up a poster, share on Facebook… and open a wallet) Strong in moralizing, telling who is right and who is wrong but it provides zero analysis. Taylor-made for Facebook generation. Artificially created movement to bring about military operation? Grassroots or Astroturf?? Is there any government concerned about military movements in Africa? A propaganda experiment: - By creating this movement, and making young people demand the US Government to intervene in Africa, the designers of this campaign have managed the impossible: reversing the propaganda model in order to make it emanate from the people. There is an enemy: identify the bad guy Once emotions have been stirred, agenda is defined: call to action

What is viral marketing? Occurs when some individuals or groups make use of pre-existing social networking services (and other technologies) to produce increases in brand awareness or spreading information and opinion through self-replicating viral processes(analogous to the spread of viruses). Making your video go viral    

tell a great story kick off with a bang build an emotional roller-coaster surprise but don´t shock

what is storytelling? The art in which a teller conveys a message, truths, information, knowledge, or wisdom to audience –often subliminally- in an entertaining way using whatever skills (musical, artistic, creative…) to enhance the audience’s enjoyment, retention and/or understanding of the message conveyed. (Berice Dudly).

INTRODUCTION TO PROPAGANDA       

an accepted part of all communication studies revival of interest in the important role of propaganda in different areas there is an inappropriate (ab)use of the term controversial subject neutral technique: which only in its specific application becomes “good” or “bad” origins of the term: Pope Gregory xv (1622) aim and purpose: - Aim: control (deliberate attempt to alter or maintain an established balance of power that is advantageous to the propagandist). - Purpose: to achieve acceptance of the propagandist´s ideology by the people to reinforce or modify attitudes, behaviours, or both.

Propaganda is the communication of a point of view with the ultimate goal of having the recipient of the appeal come to “voluntary” accepts this position as if it was his or her own. Leonard Doob The attempt to affect the personalities and to control the behaviour of individuals towards ends considered unscientific or of doubtful value in society at a particular time. Harold Lasswell Propaganda is the expression of opinions or actions carried out deliberately by individuals or groups with a view to influence the opinions or actions of other individuals or groups for predetermined ends through psychological manipulations. Jowett & O´Donnell, 2012 The deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions – sometimes manipulate cognitionsand direct behaviour to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist.    

One-way communication model Contents: opinions, symbols, ideas, selected metaphors/images and emotions to enlist public support for the propagandist’s opinion Sometimes… psychological manipulation Fields of operation (politics and religion are mainly the fields)...